Sexism In Society

The purpose of this study is to determine whether sexism has an effect on the lives of women in situations such as breastfeeding their child and whether or not people take offense to the sight of seeing a mother breastfeed her child. I will recruit 100 participants, 50 males, and 50 females, ranging from ages 18 to 50. I will perform my study using an experimental design where participants are shown a series of images in a video on a projector screen and they will place the images in one of two categories, with ten slots open for each category. The next part of my study will be to ask the participants in an essay question if they would continue, or be comfortable with their significant other continuing to breastfeed in public after receiving negative feedback from a stranger (See Appendix). I hypothesize that the majority of the participants will place an image of a mother breastfeeding in a public setting in a “bad deeds” category, but will place a picture of shirtless men playing football in the park in the “good deeds” category. I expect to come to the conclusion that people are more likely to take offense to the sight of a woman breastfeeding than to seeing a shirtless man.

Women first gained the right to vote on August 26, 1920 with the 19th amendment was approved, giving women full voting rights. Fortified by the constitutional victory in 1920, the handful of new women in Congress embarked on what would become a century-long journey to broaden women’s role in government. In the intervening years, the drive for more women’s rights encompassed the lives of the next generations of women. Even today, women are still fighting for their rights and stand up against prejudice. On the forefront of this movement are our women congresswomen who speak on behalf of all women. When Hillary Clinton announced her presidential candidacy, controversial questions immediately surfaced about the role of gender in politics. Through Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2008 and 2016, media is the principal propagator in showing bias and sexism.

When we hear the word sexism most minds automatically associate feminine oppression. I began to wonder why that was. Webster defines sexism as “prejudice based on sex; especially: discrimination against women.” After reading this I had to know why that was.

Sexism has always been a major issue for women. It seems that today, everyone has to be careful of what they say and do so as to avoid offending someone. While everyone is busy worrying about extinguishing sexism towards women - which still is an issue that needs to be taken care of, who is concerned with sexism towards men? Sexism is just as much of an issue to men as it is to women.

As many of us try to ignore or deny, media has a substantial influence in the ideology of how we perceive gender roles, power, cultures, and in this case race. The hegemonic power media has over the American population has allowed us to view one another in a stereotypical light, and creates a sense of ignorance in our understanding of one another. Take the example of African-Americans and how they are all perceived with characteristics found to be negative and stereotypical. Dating back to earlier television, the U.S. Commission of Civil Rights found that African-American television portrayals typically depicted the following stereotypic personality characteristics: inferior, stupid, comical, immoral, and dishonest. (Punyanut-Carter, 2008).

While studying art and popular culture in class, our class came across a very interesting topic and story. Throughout time everything has changed in humanity, in the way that humans look at one another. Now in the 1980’s when the whole AIDS and HIV epidemic started that’s when the whole world saw the disgrace in each other. Now in class learning about the disgrace that women had upon the world because of HIV and AIDS has really changed in a way that women are not allowed to be free within themselves anymore. The woman of today have to deal with sexism, classism and even racism just in order to survive in this world. But even through all of this women are still strong and fight for what they believe in and never give up, no matter what

The article I read was You’re Sexist. And So Am I from USA Today. This article went into discussing how everyone has internalized sexism, believing in sexism in their head, whether they like to believe it or not. This is because society teaches people norms that women must follow in order for them to be respected. As we have discussed in class, this is the idea of subjectivity because all of these social codes are predetermined and that makes them very difficult to change. One example of this was in the article when it talked about how women often chose their careers around them someday becoming mothers. Women are expected to have children and then take time off from work to raise their children. No one believes that men should be expected to stay at home and raise children because it is not the societal norm. Therefore when a woman chooses a career around impending motherhood, she is falling into subjectivity.

In modern america sexism is slowly diteriating, but it has not complitly disappeared. Women have worked hard to become astronaut, Ceos, presidentsdoctors and more, but even with these accomplishments women are still discriminated against. Women face a variety of stereotypes in the work place that prevent them from progress, some company's really think that women don't need equal pay because they are not the head of the house hold and their husbands paycheck should do the job. Other business corporations believe that women can not committed to a job because they are the primary caregiver of their children which causes companies to lose money every time there is an emergency. "The paradox is that the world of rigid and hierarchical sex roles

“You bitches need to learn your places. You do not order a brute around and get away with it!”

In recent months few topics have gripped the nation quite like the idea of sexism and gender roles. While in the last few decades many strong leaders have stepped forth to reconcile the differences, American still has a long way to go. While we present ourselves as a model for other countries, doing so is unjust considering the misbalance of power, representation, perceived value and respect. While many continue to deny it, sexism is still a major problem in modern American society.

and women sexual agency. Overall, sexual consent is represented in different forms regarding both males and females and plays a role in sexual violence.

Even when the founding fathers began to rise up, there was still a common stereotype of women being weak and powerless. Described in her letter, Abigail Adams says the truth about men back then that could be applied to the average common man today. “I desire you would Remember the Ladies, [...]. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands.” (Kylene G. Beers 111). Even back then women had troubles fitting in with the tyrants that men are, there has been little change in the status quo. This means there must be a call for change, to get rid of sexism.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie once said, “Culture doesn’t make people. People make culture.” Webster’s Dictionary defines culture as the beliefs, customs, and arts of a particular society, place, group, or time. So, the million dollar question is: Why have Americans made sexism such a big role in their culture? From seasonal holidays, annual birthday celebrations, to everyday life, Americans have discovered a way to absent-mindedly incorporate something sexist in what they do or how they do it. Because sexism has strongly impacted men and women throughout history by enforcing gender roles and stereotypes, the traditional American society and culture should dismantle sexism by educating younger generations, publicly identifying sexist terms, and restricting a variety of negative media.

Sexism today, is entirely engrained in our culture. It is so extremely prevalent that some people deeply dispute its integrated continuation from civilizations a millenia ago into our civilizations today. But, is sexism really a continuation from civilizations past? I do not believe that to be true. The novel Inanna, jointly written by Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer, includes gender equality manifested epics written by Enheduanna, the “world’s first author known by name” (Mark. 2014.). Homer’s epic, The Iliad, postdates the texts of Inanna by 1,500 years; however, the increase of time does not correlate directly with an increase of parity. Instead, surmounting several years resulted in a regression of equivalence pertaining to genders. Women in The Iliad are portrayed as either possessions and trophies, or as embodiments of temptations for which men can neither resist nor be held responsible for if they are successfully enticed. Written between the time of 600 BCE and 400 BCE, about two centuries after The Iliad, Tao Te Ching incorporates several instances throughout its text showing high regards to femininity and mothering. Following Tao Te Ching also by approximately 200 years, The Bhagavad Gita provides the concept that all souls are genderless and therefore have the same opportunities to reach a supreme destination of finally ending the cycle of reincarnation making it equally attainable between sexes. These

Sexism is defined as the discrimination or hatred against people based on their gender rather than who they are as an individual. This has been going on all throughout history, even as far back as the Bible, with Adam and Eve. Eve’s role was to be considered that of a servant rather than a human being. And it continues into modern day. Girls cannot play certain sports at school because of their gender. This type of behavior isn’t just found in day to day life, but in the media we as humans have created. Commercials, movies, advertisements, and even video games contain a lot of sexism in them. Why is this needed?